/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.1845019]

What killed off mascot platformers?

Did people just realize that none of them were ever going to be as good as Mario and Sonic?

[Anonymous No.1845071]

platformers just stopped being as popular after the 90s as other genres started to dominate instead. During the early 2000s there was also a serious push of "anti-kiddy" sentiment and nobody wanted to be caught dead making anything lighthearted. It was like the whole "mature games for mature gamers such as myself" thing except being serious

[Anonymous No.1845082]

>>1845071
There was always an "anti-kiddy" sentiment. That's why western box art is always more "manly". Kirby is a good example of this.

[Anonymous No.1845121]

First person shooters bring in more money

[Anonymous No.1845125]

They realized mascots couldn't bring in the huge multimedia blitz they wanted. Bubsy is a good example of this.

That said, I think it has more to do with how cartoons shifted in content than video games. No one liked smarmy animal characters on Saturday morning anymore, so the train of logic was they thought it was the same for video games.

[Anonymous No.1845127]

They were never any good. The exceptions prove the rule.

[Anonymous No.1845134]

Wow no love for crash. What a shit post

[Anonymous No.1845141]

What I find interesting is how many video games got their own cartoon series...

[Anonymous No.1845145]

Sony has LittleBigPlanet and Sackboy, the series is relatively successful but obviously nothing like platformers of yesteryear

[Anonymous No.1845148]

>>1845134
Is Crash even considered a mascot? When I think of him I certainly don't think of Sony in the same way I think of Nintendo when I see Mario or Sega when I see Sonic.

[Anonymous No.1845150]

>Ctrl+F
>pokemon
Huh. when It happened at my school it was total poke-domination and bye-bye sonic

[Anonymous No.1845153]

>>1845150
Pokemon was a bit of a unique phenomenon

[Anonymous No.1845154]

>>1845148
Not now, no. But in the 90's, he was Sony's face. Not only that, but he was made by Naughtydog, witch is Sony's all time flagship developer.

At this point, Crash is just another face in the crowd, multiplat pile of shit series developed by anyone and everyone at any given time. But that's Universal studios' fault.

[Anonymous No.1845157]

>>1845019
Platformers in general aren't the attention drawing money makers they once were. Where once every developer had some kind of platformer, they now all have some kind of FPS or TPS.

That's just the way it is now, because that's what draws attention and makes money.

[Anonymous No.1845161]

>>1845154
Don't you lecture me young man.

But seriously I was there and I still don't recall him being much of a mascot. Maybe because all my friends had 64s and the few who had PS1s didn't have any Crash games, or even Spyro games for that matter.

[Anonymous No.1845164]

>>1845157
>>1845145
>>1845071

I was thinking earlier than the 2000s, which it was I posted it on /vr/ instead of /v/.

It felt like in the late 90s, people got really, really tired of platformers. The few that weren't first party titles got critically shat on.

[Anonymous No.1845165]

>>1845161
Did you miss all the TV commercials with the dude in the funny Crash suit?

[Anonymous No.1845167]

>>1845141
Marketing groups were wedged into the idea that knowing how "cool" a character was would translate to game sales. While it does make sense, if more effort had been spent on making the games, they might be more memorable.

I beat Aero the goddamn Acro∙Bat, not that it was anything but tedious and aggravating after the first third had been completed.

[Anonymous No.1845172]

>>1845165
Growing up in Australia there were basically zero tv ads for video games

[Anonymous No.1845173]

Everyone in this thread is talking out of their ass, including OP.

[Anonymous No.1845176]

>>1845173
Did you know that the Latin for someone who talks out of their ass is "recto communicanus"?

[Anonymous No.1845180]

>>1845082
This didn't happen with any pre-2000s Kirby game, though, that I can think of. I'm assuming you're referring to the localization teams making Kirby look angry and stuff?

[Anonymous No.1845185]

>>1845180
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqVVG4FCq7w
America has always been insecure about its masculinity.

[Anonymous No.1845187]

>>1845164
There were still tons of platformers during the PS1/N64 days. Platformers fell out of favor when 6th gen came around.

And I don't think oversaturation was the reason, because there were tons and tons of platformers during the NES/SNES days too

[Anonymous No.1845189]

>>1845148
>>1845161
He was more or less Crash's unofficial mascot. He didn't have as much screentime as Sony's face as say, Sonic or Mario, but Sony did take full advantage of him.

[Anonymous No.1845191]

>>1845189
*Sony's

[Anonymous No.1845193]

>>1845180
It was all I could think of off the top of my head. There are plenty of other examples though.

Take Sonic for instance. Looks perfectly fine on the Jap and Euro covers but for the US he has to be all GRR EXTREME by having his eyes shifted to make him look angrier.

[Anonymous No.1845196]

>>1845019
It's too gamey.

[Anonymous No.1845198]

The death of platforming mascots began with the introduction of 3D gaming, and they finally kicked the bucket by the late 90's, more or less.
The thing is that with everything being a product of their time, 2D sidescrollers became a staple out of technological necessity and fell out of favor with the advent of games featuring a 3D plane. The struggle for them began more or less immediately then. By the end of the decade it was supposedly hard for them to even see a release, ex. Mega Man 8, which Sony was apparently not very interested to put out on their platform.
3D platformers had much the same problem. They didn't really get a chance to last because of the shift in popular genres caused by the new tech that produced them. This time it wasn't that their design was old-fashioned, it was that their concepts were, and consumers were interested in trying something new.
That's how I understand things, anyway. With indie games becoming so popular though, they're experiencing a bit of a renaissance, and many of them lived on through portable platforms for a long time even as the main franchises quietly died off or wallowed in bad design hell on home consoles.

[Anonymous No.1845201]

>>1845193
It looks the same, they just upped the contrast to make the lines bolder.

and sonic has always had that whole "cool edgy 90s totally radical" attitude. That's his thing or whatever.

[Anonymous No.1845203]

>>1845193
To be fair, that's his in-game expression on the title screen for all regions.

Rocket Knight Adventures had no excuse for doing it, though.

[Anonymous No.1845204]

>>1845203
Thanks for at least thinking of an example for me. My brain isn't...good...today

[Anonymous No.1845209]

>>1845180
Fair enough, but it didn't just happen with Kirby...

[Anonymous No.1845212]

>>1845201
Maybe in the cartoons and commercials, but it never felt that way in the games. Sonic was still rather cutesy compared to other popular stuff in the 90's such as Mortal Kombat or Duke Nukem.

[Anonymous No.1845214]

>>1845212
>but it never felt that way in the games

bullshit. look at his face on the title screen. stand around in-game and he taps his foot and gives you a dirty look.

[Anonymous No.1845220]

>>1845214
How about Bonk then?

[Anonymous No.1845223]

>>1845212
Sonic was around awhile before those games came out....

[Anonymous No.1845228]

>>1845214
That was subtle. Sega could've given him sunglasses, a backwards baseball cap and torn jeans, but they went with body language instead. The most "radical" thing he ever did in the games was snowboard in Ice Cap Zone for 10 seconds.

[Anonymous No.1845230]

>>1845228
so just because he didn't go off the deep end, that means he wasn't designed to be "cool"?

[Anonymous No.1845250]

>>1845228
They could've also ]turned him green.

[Anonymous No.1845259]

>>1845228
>>1845250
sounds kind of familiar

[Anonymous No.1845274]

>>1845230
Yes and no. Sonic was created during the cartoon renaissance in the wake of Roger Rabbit. I presume Sega of Japan caught wind of it and designed a character that would appear to Westerners at that time.

It's obvious the human girl in pic related was one of many concepts inspired by Roger Rabbit. Even Sonic himself was going to be a rabbit at some point. Japan seemed to have a partial grasp of what was popular in America, but they didn't seem to grasp the "gnarly dude" brand of cool that was emerging there.

So what we got was this strange hodgepodge of Eastern and Western tastes.

[Anonymous No.1845276]

>>1845230
Yes and no. Sonic was created during the cartoon renaissance in the wake of Roger Rabbit. I presume Sega of Japan caught wind of it and designed a character that would appeal to Westerners at that time.

It's obvious the human girl in pic related was one of many concepts inspired by Roger Rabbit. Even Sonic himself was going to be a rabbit at some point. Japan seemed to have a partial grasp of what was popular in America, but they didn't seem to grasp the "gnarly dude" brand of cool that was emerging there.

So what we got was this strange hodgepodge of Eastern and Western tastes.

[Anonymous No.1845278]

>>1845196
I hate videogames.

[Anonymous No.1845279]

>>1845276
>We could've known Dr. Robotnik as Dr. Beeman

If only

[Anonymous No.1845304]

>>1845019
The audience. The bulk of the 16-bit generation for consoles were geared towards children. Even with the Genesis/Mega Drive being marketed as a more "hardcore" console, they both were aimed at kids.

I assume the likes of the ESRB in the mid 90s made it easier for devs to do more mature content for consoles, and the success of those games made devs shift focus. This was compounded during the sixth gen with stuff like God of War and Resident Evil 4 getting HUGE amounts of success. It's a shame really because I think consoles like the PS1 had a good balance of kid-friendly mascot platformers and adult oriented games.

>>1845196
This picture still pisses me off.

[Anonymous No.1845360]

I'm not sure I understand the premise of this topic. Character platformers are still pretty popular. Sony had like 9+ first party platformers during the PS2 gen and then there's the Mario games and the Sonic games which are both being churned out at an alarming rate. Probably the biggest reason for the "decline" is that the xbox never got a really good platformer and the xbox is now the biggest console line so, with the exception of big names, it's not considered to be an important genre as far as marketing.

As for 3rd party mascots, after racking up a string of losses trying to compete with Mario and Sonic in the 16 bit gen, probably decided that they couldn't compete in the more expensive and difficult 3D realm and that if they wanted to make money with platformers they were better off licensing recognizable properties than creating their own for their shit games.

[Anonymous No.1845420]

>>1845196
I am genuinely upset.

[Anonymous No.1845426]

>>1845196
I know movies have been absolute shit the last few years but do we really need to turn to non-movie makers for 'cinematic experiences'?

[Anonymous No.1845875]

>>1845164
>>1845187
also Plenty of platformers on PS2/XBOX

[Anonymous No.1847074]

>>1845196
I'm not even that big of a Crash fan and this depresses me. The worst thing is that they're not being selective. It genuinely goes on like that for 13 pages.

[Anonymous No.1849540]

>>1845019
3D became the hot shit, and with rare exception early 3D platformers were bad. It took more effort to craft a competent platformer in three dimensions than in two, so developers shifted to genres that lent themselves to 3D more naturally.

[Anonymous No.1850165]

Was Jazz jackrabbit the mascot plateformer of PC or Commander Keen ?

[Anonymous No.1850168]

>>1850165
Duke Nukem.

[Anonymous No.1851641]

>>1850165
Jazz Jack rabbit: Mega's mascot
Commander Keen: Id's shortlived mascot
Duke Nukem: Apogee/3drealms mascot

[Anonymous No.1852213]

>>1845071
>video games have finally grown up

[Anonymous No.1852245]

>>1845220
Every version looks like shit, especially the US.

[Anonymous No.1852275]

>>1845019
>Sonic
>good
Stop claiming this shit. It's the most overrated franchise ever.

[Anonymous No.1852281]

>>1845196
this shit makes me angry

THIS is why video games are so awful in TYOL 2014

[Anonymous No.1852390]

>>1852275
>>>/v/

[Anonymous No.1852768]

>>1845196

Sometimes, just sometimes.

[Anonymous No.1852773]

>>1852768
I AM THE LAW

[Anonymous No.1852942]

>>1845209
Apparently "DIE WILY" isn't canon (USA addition) and I think that's lame as part of a plot point having Mega Man almost overcome his programming makes the game so much more interesting, and even the ending where he walks away from exploding Wily fortress you can feel his rage (look at his face) like "I should have killed him but I'm not supposed to" and thus robot existentialism sets in, almost a connection with Mega Man X the idea of free will (perhaps Dr Light got inspiration from the incident). Basically one of the USA changes I can get behind

But it doesn't matter because in Mega Man 8 it's a little girl voice actor and IT RUINS EVERYTHING

[Anonymous No.1852961]

>>1845019
>mascots
>good
>platformers
>good

they're the reason we have furries nowadays

Mario is an exception because he's an italian plumber on shrooms, so the whole thing is psychedelic

and platformers outside of Mario games have always been shitty, no exception

[Anonymous No.1852965]

>>1845201
US cover was redrawn though, by that same guy who died earlier this year.

[Anonymous No.1852970]

>>1852942
Overthinking, you're doing it.

[Anonymous No.1853084]

>>1852961
>>>/v/

[Anonymous No.1853123]

>>1845019
care to explain your pic, OP?

[Anonymous No.1853380]

>>1852275
It ain't a claim. It's a fact of life.

[Anonymous No.1853532]

They not dead, they is still around yo!

[Anonymous No.1853793]

>>1853123
Rayman was basically the successor to Plok.

[Anonymous No.1856461]

Mascot platformers are fucking boring, that's why.

[Anonymous No.1856465]

>>1852275
RLM pls go. We already had this discussion last week.